Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Learning to Brew

As I wrote the title of this post, I had a certain song from Tom Petty rolling through my mind. NOTE: I do not have the rights to this song and that tidbit probably does not matter whatsoever, but I would like to entertain the idea that one of Tom Petty's people (band mates, staff, crazed fans, Lenny etc.) could get all fired up about this. On that note, let me tell you that this post has nothing to do with that song, or Tom Petty. Sorry for the hype.

If you like to brew or drink beer, hopefully you're still with me.

This weekend was a very humbling one for me and my boyfriend as homebrewers. Despite first starting to brew two years ago (albeit on a smaller, Mr. Beer scale), we made a rookie mistake this weekend by underestimating a powerful Kolsch II yeast strain. We didn't use a blow-off tube. My coat closet paid for this mistake, suffering a pretty intense beer explosion at some point on day two of fermentation. After some heavy-duty cleaning, we headed backto the local homebrew store, where we had just shopped that week for the initial batch of ingredients. On the trip there, I commented to Vipin "I really hope that same guy isn't working. He's going to think we're idiots." Of course he was the first one to greet us and I immediately spilled the beans on our mistake like I had just stepped into a confessional (aka 'confession box', per my google search terms). Gah, why do I do things like that? Then I proceeded to relay the exact thoughts I had about hoping to avoid him. Again, why? "Ha. Ha. Let me help you find that Kolsch yeast."

We tried to salvage the first batch, and I believe we were successful. The fermentation is still pretty wild 4 days and 1 explosion later. The second (fully intact, so far) batch is also going strong, now with the proper equipment to encourage its raging. Our tiny kitchen is now overrun with 6 buckets and tubes going in every which way. See below for an artistic representation of this, and note that the original looks way more like a meth lab, so we'll keep it clean, guys.

Cheers to surprise lessons, always learning, and happy brewing.

Oh, and special thanks to a very special blogger Trishceratops for inspiring me to pick this up again.